“Let me think about it.”
The hope fell, and she felt her heart squeeze. Ugh, didn’t he see that was a lot to ask? He was a friend, yes. She was glad he wasn’t dead, yes. She didn’t regret saving him and his friends or former friends or whatever they were to him… She thought of how her parents had moved mountains to help her find an escape when she’d been lied to and betrayed. Not just her parents, but neighbors and friends had rallied to scrape together enough to undo as much of what Iovar had done as they could. It hadn’t replenished the money that Iovar had drained from their family business, but it had enabled her parents to keep their house and their boat. Then her parents had gone into debt to buy Marin’s sailboat,Silver, and pay the overpriced sorcerer to turn it into a proper supply runner’s ship with a large hold and enough bells and whistles to enable her to stay on the sea as long as she wanted.As long as I needed.
How could she turn down someone else in need of an escape?
“I can’t pay you,” Dax said. “Until I’m a grandmaster, I don’t have access to any funds. All my compositions are owned by the conservatory as recompense for their expenses up until my opus.”
That seemed enormously unfair. He did all the creating, and the conservatory reaped all the benefit? He didn’t even get a stipend as a whatever-level master he was? Shouldn’t that come with some financial benefits?
“I can work,” he offered, a hint of desperation in his voice.He really wants this.
What could he do on a boat? He didn’t know how to sail. Looking away from his hopeful eyes, Marin gazed across the harbor. Out in the waves, Perri had amassed a flock of seagulls that was thick enough to blot out the sun. He was having the time of his life flinging them fish. One foolish bird got overeager and nipped his front fin. Irritated, Perri swatted it away, which sent the bird sailing beyond the flock. It flew back, eager for more fish, and Perri made it a game: keep the fish away from the bird who bit. Every time that bird would try to dive for one, he’d use a fin or his sinewy body to knock it toward a different bird. It was rather hilarious to watch, the contortions he’d pretzel himself into, but far kinder than he could have been. She’d also seen him snatch birds out of the sky mid-flight when it was his dinnertime.
She remembered when she first met him, how she felt when she saw him stuck between rocks.This shouldn’t feel the same.Dax had a perfectly reasonable place to live with people who clearly cared about him. So why did it feel the same?
“I’ll think about it,” Marin said again.
She knew what Perri would say if she asked him. She wondered how Ree would feel about another crewmate. The myrtle had climbed to the top of the mast again. As they sailed closer to the public dock, Ree shouted, “I’ll tie off!” He then flung his leafy body into the air, somersaulted, and cried, “Wheee!”
Marin felt her entire body tense. “Ree, you’re not—”
He arched toward the dock…
… and overshot it.
He splashed into the harbor just beyond the dock.
Without thinking, Marin launched herself toward the side of the boat, dove into the water, and swam toward the bush, who’d bobbed up onto the surface.
“I’m okay,” Ree sputtered. “I’m okay.”
She gathered him up and hoisted him onto the dock, then she pushed herself up, ran to the end of the dock, and leaped onto the bow of her boat in time to steer it so it gently bumped into the pylons instead of ramming into them. Rapidly, she lowered the sails and tied off onto the dock.
Ree waddled back onto the boat, leaving puddles behind. “I almost made it.”
Dax knelt next to him. “Are you all right? The salt water…”
“I’m a halophyte,” Ree informed him. “Salt-resistant plant.”
“Ah, great. Do you need a towel? Or… I don’t know.” He looked up at Marin, who was also dripping puddles on the deck. “I’ll get a towel.” He scurried below.
Sopping wet, Marin summoned up a smile to greet the islanders on the dock. She wasn’t sure what to say when she was delivering people, not goods, or how to explain her overeager leafy crew member. Luckily, she didn’t have to figure it out.
Shiare shouted, “I’m home! And I brought friends!”
The islanders on the dock cheered.
Well, okay, I guess that’s fine.To Ree, she said, “You did almost make it.”
“Next time I won’t miss,” he said.
“Next time I won’t dive in after you,” Marin said. “You miss, you swim.” A thought occurred to her. “Do you know how to swim?”
“Um…”
“I’m teaching you how to swim.” She wondered if Dax knew how to swim. It seemed absurd to her that anyone who lived on an island would not know how, but he had spent his entire life insidethe conservatory. Plus the canals of Alyssium were a terrible place for swimmers—they were too narrow, too junked up with debris and runoff from the buildings, as well as who knew what from their sewage system, which was supposedly enchanted to transport the manure to a farming island… Wait, did that mean she was seriously considering letting him stay on board?
A woman with magenta skin, wearing a purple wrap dress and no shoes, ran toward the end of the dock. “Shiare! You don’t write. You don’t send notes. We’ve been so worried!” As Shiare stepped off the boat, the woman enfolded her in her arms. “Your drumbeats were sloppy. There was too long a hesitation between the twenty-ninth hit and the thirtieth.”
